Thursday, April 16, 2009

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

PLAY BALL!

Colter is already training for the big leagues. Last night, he told me his dream was to play for the Chicago cubs. He's become a big fan of the Little Bear cartoon, so I think that's why he wants to be a bear. He can't wait to hit a home run out of Wrigley field.
I wonder what John the Cardinalholic would do if his son really did become a cub? Quoth Little Bear, "Interesting."

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!

I live with a two-year-old egg hunting champion. At a local Easter egg hunt, Colter raced around other kids and filled his basket in record time. He was amazing. :) I think I should call a talent agent. I must admit; however, Colter was one of the older toddlers in his age division and as you can see from the picture below, the eggs were not exactly hard to find. There were plastic eggs everywhere! It was kind of a chilly morning, so I guess less kids than expected showed up for the hunt, because there were a ton of eggs. Every child was able to find plenty of eggs (although, I don't think anyone could have found as many as Colter the egg hunting champion!), and the hunt provided fifteen minutes of fun!



Colter and his bud, Soren, waited very patiently for the hunt. I only had to chase Colter out of the eggs twice. Well, maybe three times.
Daddy was a good basket holder.
As you can tell, Colter got the hang of egg-hunting real quickly!There were over fifty plastic eggs in his basket!
Each egg had a piece of candy or a plastic toy inside. I don't know how long it took the Optimist's club to fill all those eggs! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), there were only a few pieces of candy that were appropriate for toddlers. That was okay though, because Grandma Jean, Nana, and Poppy made sure Colter had enough Easter candy to last until next Easter. Unless Mommy ate it all....After the egg hunt at the park, we went to another one at a local church. Colter got to listen to a story about Jesus, and then he was off to find more eggs!
Fun times!

The next day, the Easter bunny came by and and left Colter a few books, a bunny, and some candy.

Of course, Colter was most impressed by the candy. :)

Monday, April 6, 2009

Copycat Colter

Colter is a little copycat. Whatever we do, he wants to do. He goes through phases of being a mommy imitator, daddy imitator, or Uncle Sawyer imitator (copy Sawyer is his favorite game, I think). Pretty much everyone around Colter needs to start watching what they do/say, because Colter's gonna want to do/say what everyone else is. Hear that Dad and Sister Dear? Colter's watching you!!!

A few weeks ago, John used a yardstick to get a ball from underneath the couch. Colter of course wanted to be just like Daddy, so Colter put the ball back under the couch, so he could get it out too.


The little nut.

Friday, April 3, 2009

FFF-Poppy the Monkey Man

Today's theme for Favorite Foto Friday is "beach." I don't have any beach pictures to share, but--surprise! I have even more Arches National Park pictures. These pictures are from Sand Dune Arch. It was kind of like the beach. If the beach was lacking in H2O. And if the beach was cold and windy. And in a canyon. Oh, okay, the only similarity was that there was sand.

Sand Dune Arch was one of my favorite places we explored on our Utah trip--we actually visited twice because it was so awesome (there are some pictures of both visits). It was otherworldly.
We strolled into a canyon-like place..and the world totally changed. We were in between two, tall red rock walls and the ground was covered in fine, red sand. Even though it seemed like we would be sheltered from the wind in between the rock walls, the wind actually picked up. The first time we visited, it was so windy, we had sand everywhere when we left. In our hair, eyes, clothes, everywhere! Even though the wind was not pleasant, the place was so strangely beautiful.See all the sand? It's kinda like a beach.Sand Dune ArchThe location of Sand Dune Arch is really awesome, but it is not as big as many of the other arches we hiked to. Here's a picture of Colter under it to kind of give you an idea how big it is.As we were exploring under the arch, I turned around and saw my dad scaling the rock walls, and then he disappeared. He turned up a few minutes later ON TOP OF THE ARCH. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that, Dad. Um, Dad?
WHAT are you doing? You're going to break the arch! What if they have a "you break it you buy it policy?" Do you have any idea how much 3 million years of eroded rock formation would cost? Somebody is gonna call the rangers!
We got the heck out of there before Dad broke something.

My dad is kind of loony. He's always climbing on things he should not be climbing on and making us all worry he's going to fall. I swear, he's part monkey. I have all kinds of memories of him climbing giant trees like it's the easiest thing ever. The whole week in Utah, he climbed all over the rocks without any ropes, helmets, or special shoes. We'd turn around, and all of a sudden he'd be 50 feet above us. The big ape. Fortunately, we made it home without him falling off a cliff even though we did lose him a couple times (another story for another time). I love my goofy dad. Even if he is a monkey.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Silly Son's Revenge-Tell Me Thursday

Wordless Wednesday---Unattended Son+Box of Cheddar Rabbits=Bad Idea Explained

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a busy mommy. This mommy had the responsibilities of a full-time stay-at-home-mom plus the added responsibilities of two part-time jobs. She also liked to fit in a few other things when she had time--you know, bathing and stuff, so sometimes the busy mommy had dingy moments as a result of her busyness (or maybe the busy mommy was just dingy). One of the busy mommy's jobs was online teaching. For her online teaching job, the silly mommy had to give presentations in a chat room type place two afternoons a week during the silly son's nap time. The busy mommy thought she had her time well-organized, and her schedule was arranged perfectly. She was WRONG.

One day, the busy mommy's silly son decided to sabotage the perfectly organized schedule just for kicks. The silly son thought it would be much more interesting to help his busy mommy with her job than take a nap. Who needs sleep anyway? Not silly son! The only problem was, how could the busy mommy realistically teach a lesson on formal outline format with an almost-two-year-old yelling in the microphone and pressing all the computer keys? She couldn't. It was impossible! The students would not be able to hear anything but, "Um ga! Wahh wa da? Me roor la la ta?" The students had enough trouble with regular English, so there was no way the students would know that the silly son's toddler speech translated into, "It's quite simple really. When organizing a formal outline, one must always remember to...etc. etc. etc." (The silly son was a genius who at the age of almost-two was very capable of teaching English I. He could also solve quadratic equations and balance encyclopedias on his head while tap dancing). Fortunately for the busy mommy, often no students actually attended the online lessons, so it didn't really matter that the silly son refused to take a nap. EXCEPT, students actually showed up for the online lesson. Oh no! What would the busy mommy do? She had no choice. The busy mommy strapped the silly son into his high chair, gave him a glass of milk, blueberries, yogurt, and some cheddar crackers in the shape of rabbits. Unfortunately, the busy mommy was in such a rush to make it back to the office on time, she carelessly gave the silly son a whole box of cheddar rabbit crackers.

While the busy mommy was teaching the lesson, she was amazed at how quiet and well-behaved her silly son seemed to be. She heard him chattering and occasionally kicking the high chair, but no screams of protest emitted from the dining area. What a good silly son! The busy mommy was able to teach her lesson, which lasted about 30 minutes. She said farewell to her students and put down her microphone with a sigh of relief. Everything had worked out fine! The lesson was taught and even though the silly son had to be strapped in his high chair all alone, he had not seemed to mind. The busy mommy rushed out of the office to release her silly son. This sight greeted her. No wonder silly son was so quiet and well-behaved. SILLY MOMMY. A whole box of cheddar crackers? What was silly mommy thinking?

To see more Tell Me Thursday posts, go here.